A large and growing population of users employs various electronic devices to read periodicals such as newspapers, journals, magazines, news feeds and blog feeds. Among these electronic devices are electronic book readers (e-book readers), cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable media players, tablet computers, netbooks, and the like.
Converting periodicals into a format understandable by e-book readers or other electronic devices involves a significant manual effort. Publishers provide periodical feeds in diverse formats, thus requiring customized code to be written for individual publishers (or sometimes even individual titles) to map the publisher's periodical feeds to the format understandable by e-book readers or other devices. In addition, publishers' materials typically have recurring problems such as missing articles and sections and incorrect formatting, resulting in frequent non-scalable operational loads. Further, quality control usually must be done manually for every issue to ensure that it matches a source of a periodical. As e-book readers and other electronic devices continue to proliferate, finding inexpensive and effective ways to convert periodicals into a standard format understandable by the electronic devices continues to be a priority.